double door studio

Hello so i got this big living room i'd like to make into a project studio. at the moment it is just one big room, with wooden floor, (coated) painted brick walls, painted concrete ceiling, and (unfortunatley?) a lot of big windows. my goal would be to give small young bands a place where they can come to record a demo tape with a solid quality. i don't have any experience in studio building, all the recording i did so far was in my acoustically treated room in my parents house. i wont be able to insulate the room to the point where no noise gets in. but the environment is rather quite. small country village, (the occasional church bell is a pain in the butt tho!). i'd say my budget is around 5 to 7 grand for all the wall work, including a window in the control room wall maybe. so i gave it shot and draw this plan and i wondered if this is any good, or if you guys wouldn't go seperate control room at all. or if this desing isn't any good at all (too many right angled walls?), too small a control room? i don't have to insulate the room from escaping noise. there are no neighbours. the only wall in this drawing that is planned to be real tight is the one between the control room and the live room. metal stud construction. 2 sheets of drywall - air - 5" rockwool 38kg/m3 - air - drywall. the other walls would be to get the right acoustics. the room behind the live room is going to be my bed room, in case you wondered why i didn't use that space. the hallway is where you actually enter the studio from the apartments kitchen. that hallway i thought i could use as a machine room, where i have the noisy things like my computer. i can only rent the room and if i'd ever move out i would have to take the walls out again. so please let me now what you think of this lay-out! really looking forward to get your opinions, suggestions... regards empty room

i like the layout. what is the far end room for? i'd probably angle the far wall and make that end room into a couple of isolation rooms with sliding glass doors or big windows and solid core doors. i think if you built inner isolation walls in front of the windows and used some smaller glass block (or regular glass if you have a view) windows to allow some natural daylight but increase the overall isolation. what is the ceiling construction?

thanks for the quick response! wow :) the room at the end is actually my bedroom. there's not a whole lot more to the apartment than this one big room, and i gotta sleep somewhere :) i thought i will check the situation with the ceiling after the walls are put in. you know, get the basic absorbtion done with bass traps in the corners and than see what it still needs. i am probably going to hang selfmade clouds up. at the moment it is just a painted concrete ceiling. i like that idea with the second wall in front of the windows. i don't have a very nice view, but the light is nice. maybe later on i could add these walls. what do you guys think about the windows anyways? is it going to be very hard to get a good acoustic with those? will thick drapes be enough combined with the clouds and bass traps for a start? also: is there a danger in absorbing to much bass since a lot is going to go out the windows..?

knuckles92 wrote:

... i gotta sleep somewhere :)

sleep on the CR couch... :wink: you want to check your isolation before your build so you know what you need... acoustic treatment is not going to provide isolation... if necessary spend some time and effort to measure the existing isolation to determine what you need to do. it might be you need to tear down an existing ceiling drywall and beef up between the ceiling joists and add a decoupled drywall layer (isolation clips etc) to meet your needs. and that should all be done in conjunction with the room design so you get what you pay for. could you post the raw SU file without your additions? ensure it is dimensionally correct and includes all key items like ducts, vents, pipes, radiators, etc etc.

Hi, i'm sorry, could you tell me what a raw SU file is? :oops: i don't have any plans of the building. this sketchUp drawing you see, i just measured the ground floor myself. it's accurate. there is one uncovered steel beam under the ceiling, going along the whole room. i will partly cover that one up. then theres heater pipes running along the side of the room (below the windows), i am going to build some sort of cabinet around it, so it won't mess with the sound. that is all. there are no ducts or vents. wiring is also done well. the windows are deffinetly the weakest link concerning the isolation, i mean entering noise. but i guess it would bust my budget to cover that. i really just wanna try to get a good acoustic in these rooms, if somehow possible.

same plan in feet, probably a little more useful to you.

SU = SketchUp file. no problem with metric or imperial.

could you post the SU file itself instead of images? it will be easier that trying to re-drawing it from scratch...

oh man! i am so sorry! and i've wondered what you possibly could use these other pictures for ... :oops: how do i post the actual file up here? do i have to have an external website for that like for the pictures? really appreciate your help, sorry for the missunderstanding!

you can just upload to this site like you do the images...

su file

i didn't see the attach file section at first :mrgreen: the pictures i have on photobucket. hope this works and thanks for your incredible patience, sincerely, computermoron :horse:

maybe something where you build a set of isolation walls inside - possibly with heat vents as needed plus glass block or interior windows - smaller to allow light but increase isolation. if you need a door into the bedroom you could put one between the polys. note the live room has two different angles on the parallel walls.

first of all: Happy New Year! :shot: second: wow!! and thank you so much :D this looks so nice! i have a few questions if you don't mind? what is your estimated budget on this? and wouldn't give me such a big glass door some kind of acoustic problems? can you use a normal glass door for that (a thick one of course) like you would use in a winter garden or are there other ones... i mean because of the laminated glass i would use if i'd build a window.

you could just go with a nice large window and enhanced solid core doors instead of the sliders although a pair of exterior grade sliders can give you a pretty decent level of isolation. the glass on angles shouldn't be any more of problem than solid walls on angles :wink: the idea is to create a room within a room but if you're mostly happy with the isolation, the build the majority as treatment walls and use the angled walls to isolate the rooms. extend the isolation around the windows to the treatment framing to improve TL. the options depend on your total isolation needs versus some de-construction on the existing walls to avoid any triple leaf effects and the treatments you can afford to build.